Prof. Kim Venn (University of Victoria)

Star clusters and dwarf galaxies are known to cohabit the outer Milky Way halo, including as tidally disrupted streams. It is useful to distinguish these objects, as the "ultra faint" dwarf galaxies probe the low mass end of the dark matter halo distribution function, and their properties are used to constrain dark matter particle scenarios. Similarly, anydispersions or wrinkles in tidally disrupted "star cluster" streams are used to explore the cold dark matter subhalo population in the Milky Way halo. Unfortunately, the faintest of these systems, where the physics becomes the most interesting, are the most challenging to classify and do impact our understanding of dark matter. In this talk, I will discuss faint stellar systems found in recent imaging surveys, and our efforts to use chemistry, dynamics, and N-body simulations to reveal their underlying natures.